Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hatton: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, done just where your vehicle stands around Hatton, is usually what it needs if caught before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds your engine — but plenty of newer diesels seen round Hatton and Cruden Bay carry another fluid too. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray treats the gas.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less commonly. That gap is where the error lives.
Hatton: how AdBlue in your diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and running dry leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Main Street, or at Hatton Mill (closed) on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar cars are next, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and once the tip starts, no part stops it. It takes seconds, be it in Chapel Hill or right in the centre of Hatton.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all these take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Port Erroll or a forecourt around Hatton.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Ask when you collect a hire car or fleet car — at the nearest station's car park, say — not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever around Aberdeenshire, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Station Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, confirm it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, and look once more — confirm the diesel filler stayed shut throughout. Only then, start your car.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop right there. Don't go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Hatton?
Short list, then. First: your engine remains off. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch it on. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
On a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any other — the attendants will normally help push your car clear, when you ask. On your own drive in Hatton? Then the car remains where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. The next junction means where to leave if you are on the M90, over 50 miles from Hatton. A short hop across Hatton is a smaller job than a run towards Aberdeen, under 25 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up in Hatton, what occurs?
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, near War Memorial or on your own drive. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because those replies determine the work and our price. During the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. A test comes at the end: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the fuel filter is flushed or replaced as needed. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Hatton
Hatton is a small village in Aberdeenshire, situated on the coast of Scotland at an elevation of 41 metres. Hatton lies approximately 20 miles north of Aberdeen and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Hatton is part of a wider network of rural communities in the area, including nearby Chapel Hill and Aldie. Hatton has a population of around 807 residents.
AdBlue drains around Hatton, and Aberdeenshire beyond
Aldie and Easterton of Auchleuchries are among the towns around Hatton, a coastal village, that the same teams cover, over AB postcodes. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting AB42 0.
No need to shift your car. Wherever it stands — near Hatton Village Hall, in a lay-by heading to Fairy Hillock, at home — that is where it gets cleared. Guessing won't help at the back of Cruden Parish Church, close to a boundary, or somewhere awkward to pin down; ring and ask.
The short version for Hatton drivers
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank after all? Leave the car switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Aberdeenshire.